James Gandolfini: "I Don't Necessarily Think Acting Is Fun"

James Gandolfini: “I Don’t Necessarily Think Acting Is Fun”

Kristen Stewart and James Gandolfini chat about their new film, ‘Welcome to the Rileys.’

-Sarah Polonsky

The lewd hooker portrayed by Kristen Stewart in the upcoming Jake Scott directed film, Welcome to the Rileys is miles away from her Bella role in the Twilight Saga that made her famous. What will her Tween fans think? Kristen isn’t too worried about that. In fact, she prepared for her role with a vengeance.

“I got bruises during rehearsal because I learned to pole dance. It really hurts,” Stewart said at a press conference in New York City on Monday. “I was walking down the street with my robe open and fishnets and had no inhibitions. I wasn’t scared.”

As for her co-star James Gandolfini, who plays a man whose teenage daughter died in a car crash and turns to Mallory (Stewart) a young lady who turns tricks in New Orleans, to play father figure to. “He’s questioning things,” says Gandolfini. “I’ve reached an age where I look back and ask, ‘how did I get here?’ With me it’s mostly good, but with him it’s not what I expected. He has to go back in his mind and try to figure out what do now. I think a lot of people do that.”

As for working alongside the young Stewart, Gandolfini was “surprised by how smart she was for a young woman and how together and how she’s doing this for all the right reasons.”

Gandolfini gave the Press a surprise of his own when he admitted that although, “I don’t necessarily think acting is fun… this was a great experience.” Acting isn’t fun? We somehow don’t believe you, Tony Soprano!